Tell us how you really feel.

Thanks for the advice. If I could make 120k/year playing roulette, I would. As to giving handjobs to players that beat me on my way out, that's not the way I show my sportsmanship, but I dont judge, it's 2012 and you gotta keep an open mind. Hope the security isn't too harsh on you.

The real problem is that you had no plan going into the flop on what you were going to do once you flatted. As played, you've committed 15% of your stack and the SPR is under 3. You don't have any room to manuever. The hand should play itself depending on the flop.

So you should be thinking about what kind of flop you want to have if you don't improve (because you won't most of the time). You need a range. I don't think a good LAG's value range for 3 betting is QQ+, AK, but we'll accept it. Let's assume he's got some Ax and SC for balance on his polarized range. If there's an over card, you're about a 2:1 underdog. You'll see that about 50% of the time. You'll have to fold. Therefore, if you're calling, you're committed if the flop comes under jacks with your read. Otherwise, you're better off turning them into a bluff or folding pf.

I agree with calling on the flop. On the turn, I'd check. He isn't folding a better hand. Depending on my belief on how often he'd bluff his stack, I'd call or fold the shove on the turn. With a LAG playing at a lower stake game, I'm calling. The only advantage of the mini-donk bet is that it is going to confuse him. If you're beating him, he's folding even to this. He has a FD, he'll happily pay this price. If he's beating you, he's not folding, but there's a good chance that being confused, he'll just call like he did.

If I had to guess, he showed up with queens on the river going for a thin value bet.

How often were you opening preflop and how light was the fish calling opens preflop. That is very important to know if your opponent was paying attention to the game at all.

This thread got silly fast. A lot of people are acting like it's an easy spot (when op gets 3b huge pre while holding JJ oop against a good lag), when actually it's a really tough spot and makes for a potentially good discussion.

Flatting against this guy isn't great because we are giving him a free look at the flop (and maybe turn) with all his 3b hands that wouldn't call a 4b (and that portion of his range has plenty of equity against JJ). We are also failing to charge AK which is a big part of his range and is actually a significant dog if it only gets to see 3 cards. Post flop, we are folding the best hand a ton, we are not always getting value when we have the best hand and don't fold (it's tough to get value oop), and we are always playing a guessing game when we don't flop a set. Most importantly, we will be first to have to essentially commit or not commit stacks as his pending Cbet should leave us with less than a psb behind--> if we call, he will know what we have and how to proceed on different turn and river cards... and if we ship, he just gets to play perfectly right away.

Folding isn't great simply because we are ahead of his 3b range. Having said that, looking ahead (and it is ok to look ahead when stacks are moderate to deep lol) our positional disadvantage and awkward stack size and how our hand will be face up and his range will be wide the rest of the way makes it a better option than flatting IMO, and maybe the most viable of the the three.

4b is good obv because it charges everything we are ahead of and it helps us protect our equity, setting us up for a flop shove (if we like the flop). It also better defines villain's range while keeping ours uncapped- no, we are not "raising for information", we are just getting the side benefit of putting him in a spot where he will have to turn his hand face up (and playing against a defined range is $$$ obv). And while we are not re-reraising as a bluff, we will occasionally fold out QQ pre or post, and that is more than fine.

However, if villain is 5b shipping AK and sometimes AQ (along with QQ+) because he realizes how wide his perceived 3b range is, our 4b loses most of it's value. It essentially only folds out the speculative part of his 3b range and puts us in a super high variance, neutral at best ev spot against the rest of it. Also, if he is savvy enough to flat a wideish range sometimes (including bigger pairs and smaller pairs and such that will bluff A or K high flops), we get owned there as well.

So, in summation, if villain is likely to take your oop 4b as very strong and will play very straight forward the rest of the way (1100 seems like a lot for 2 5 and it seems like you have a clean image so I think this will be the case), then 4b/fold seems best IMO. If he's instead going to read the situation correctly and ship AK because his 3b is so underrepped, then folding seems best (even though it's ahead of his 3b range). Both flatting and 4b/calling seem like poor options.

This just in, position is important in deepstack nl, and aggression in position is extremely profitable .

theyre not deep stacked

Ok, here are a few things worth mentioning..

This is a regular passive 2/5 game with a max buyin of $600, with many people buyin in for 200-300. Hero and villain are 2 biggest stacks at the table. So yes, theoretically it's 110bbs effective, but realistically we are deep, and this is the biggest pot I saw all day in this game. People (other than villain) don't 3bet anything other than premiums, maybee AK. That's what I mean when I say, villain will never stack off with anything worse. It will be suicidal for him, bcs nobody in this game would get this much money in pre with something worse than jacks. So you can count the stacks as 220bbs for a better feel of the dynamics of this game.

I'm a slag myself, and can relate to this villain as our styles are similar. Someone mentioned here that lags hate getting raised, I think this is very false. When lags get raised by passives, they have a super easy decision. Their whole game consists of barreling non-stop, and snap folding when they are raised. The best way to beat them is to use their aggression against them. When villain 3bets, he is guaranteed to make a nice size cbet on any flop with his entire range, which we are doing really well against with JJ, and most of which has 3 outs or less. Preventing him to put in an extra 215 on any flop with his entire range is a mistake, and 4betting does just that.

Like I said before, my read was that villain 3bets a polarized range, and I was quite certain about that. Polarized ranges consist of nutted and really weak hands, 4betting will narrow his continuing range to nutted only, which is going to crush JJ.

If this is true, why f around with the min-bet/fold plan in the OP?

What is he going to do iyo with each of the following hands when you make it 365 (assuming they are all in his 3b range):

QQ-
KK-
AA-
AQ-
AK-

And there is value in folding out the other half of his 3b range. Those hands don't automatically lose to JJ, especially in position, especially if they might bluff.

I didn't min bet, I bet $350, which was 40% of the pot. A min bet would be $5. The reason I did that because there was enough money in the pot for me to protect my equity vs hands that I was beating at that moment.

He would fold AQ for sure (if that's even in his 3betting range), as to the rest either flat or ship, I'm rly not sure. There is a slight chance he may even fold QQ and AK, but I'm not sure how likely that is. Again, we don't have any history, and I'm probably just another passive fish who 4bets aces and kings to him.

just because other people bought in for 200 bucks and the game is capped at 600 does not mean youre sitting 220 blinds deep here

in fact i really dont understand why you would stay in a game with a bunch of short stacks, where the one good player at the table has position pn you and has you covered

Someone mentioned here that lags hate getting raised, I think this is very false.

Just because theyll fold to someones obvious monster doesnt mean they like it. Additionally they typically dont adjust well to people who actually play back at them because it so rarely happens live.Are you never 4 betting pre here?

If you are playing LAG and this is his third time 3-betting you in a few hours of play I would happily 4-bet and then call an all in with the stack sizes. I would probably min 4-bet to induce. While his calling raise may crush you, he might shove bad hands thinking he still has fold equity since this is a decent opportunity to 4-bet bluff.

I think 4 bet folding is real bad and so is leading turn and folding to a shove.

Seems like an easy 4b/fold then. He's prob never flatting AA with his image and he's prob not flatting KK either. He's prob only flatting AK hoping to bink and QQ planning to reevaluate. And folding out those hands on the flop (and everything else pre) is more than fine.

Sounds like a pretty nitty game tbh.

Ok, min 4bet to induce is something got consider. I wasn't even thinking about that tbh, and it may well work. I'm a lag, but I'm not sure if villain picked up on that in the short time that we played together.

Seems like everyone wants to 4bet, but there is a disagreement on whether to 4b/fold or 4b/ get it in. Maybe it's because neither one of these options is good. The main argument is that playing a competent lag with JJ is bad oop. Well preflop, a competent lag is still a competent lag, we are still oop, and stacks are just as deep. So if we were to make a big mistake postflop, what makes us think that we won't make a big mistake preflop? Or is it less scary this way, bcs we have the 4th best pair, and hopefully won't have to see that deadly flop?

I'm really yet to hear a logical argument for 4betting. 4bet/fold = bluffing, so we might as well have ATC for that. 4bet/get it in, we are just not doing good enough vs his 5betting range for that to be profitable, and will have 2 outs most of the time when $ goes in. 4bet tiny to induce, is an option, but a vague and hopeful one.

Playing postflop obviously doesn't prevent us from making a large mistake, but at least it doesn't prevent villain from making a large mistake. 4betting pre does prevent villain from making any more mistakes in the hand. Yes, he could have put 165 in with a worst hand, and yes we can charge him him for that (possible) mistake, but all his mistakes will stop right then and there when we 4bet. We force him into a perfect play by 4betting, while opening ourselves up for a much larger mistake than he could possibly have made. Compare this to flatting, when we force villain into at least a cbet for more than 25% of the remaining stacks. Which in itself is a decent size mistake, assuming we are ahead of his 3betting range with JJ, and assuming that he cbets ~100% of the time, both of which are pretty safe assumptions.

We would be less wrong to check-shove all flops then to 4bet pre.

i think 4betting pre is bad, for reasons described already.

i really don't think that 4betting pre is going to make the hand any easier to play unless you 4bet shove, and i don't feel that's a very +EV spot.

as rough as it is, flatting is probably the best option in this situation because it may keep the fish in the pot and keeps his range wide enough for JJ to be doing pretty well. If you aren't comfortable playing oop with JJ without the initiative in a pot like this, then as weak as it is, just fold.

as played i think it's a very close decision between calling and folding the river. Yes you have an overpair and are getting big odds from the pot. But your hand is exactly what it looks like, and would this guy really fire off a hopeless bluff where he fully expects you to call with what you obviously have?

Agree 100%

As to calling river, he is getting a great price on a bluff, to get me off something rly weak, and im getting a great price to call.

315/call pre imo. As played you absolutely cannot fold getting this price. Pre is tough, but 100bbs effective or so I think 4betting really small and sigh/getting it in if he shoves is better than folding or flatting.

i think villain had aqcc, akcc

Result: villain flipped over A4ss, and then berated me and said he knew exactly what I had. I told him I would've folded is he shoved the turn, he didn't believe me and berated me even more.

Why are we limiting ourselves to these betting lines? This is the perfect kindof spot/matchup to be using overbets OOP.

Some line considerations: check/ship flop as a merge. Or call flop + open ship turn. or 4betStack preflop.


Granted, I usually vote for the kamikaze lines in a slagathon, and given my reputation to be FOS this can work better for me due to meta/history than for other players.

History matters here. Given you're about 110BB effective (in what is otherwise a 200BB stack), normal betsizing lets him really own you with position; overbetsizing can be used to take away some of those advantages (IMHO); which is perfect for the 100-200BB stacksizes that you're playing with.

Normal betsizing = easy pot control for IP LAG
Overbetsizing = none of that


In this game you're against the only villain that requires creativity (also, as a bonus, the fish will see you overbetting with only 1 pair, should they ever be deep enough it is a possibility against them)

Donking 350 and folding for your last 400 on the turn if he jams is really really bad fwiw.

Agreed.

This is the joy of donking all 750 on the turn instead

I just realized its not even an overbet (I'd suggest donking stack even if pot was 4-500 here).
Its under potsize. Bet stack.

Well in his defense bet/fold the turn with that betsizing is basically waving the white flag and declaring yourself his lifetime prison-bitch. Also, given that you should never fold anything on the river here; I'm shocked he bet this river with a bluff. This game must be epicly soft.

Glad you won a nice big pot.